• BIOGRAPHY - Preface

• Vince Clarke
• Andrew Fletcher
• Martin Lee Gore
• David Gahan
• Alan Wilder
• Foundation

• 1981
• 1982
• 1983
• 1984
• 1985
• 1986
• 1987
• 1988
• 1989

• 1990
• 1991
• 1992
• 1993
• 1994
• 1995
• 1996
• 1997
• 1998/99

• 2000/01/02
• 2003/04
• 2005/06
• 2007/08
• 2009/10

1984

Overview: Released this year were the singles People Are People / In Your Memory and Master And Servant / (Set Me Free) Remotivate Me, followed by the album Some Great Reward and another single release Blasphemous Rumours / Somebody.

---

In January and February, 1984 the band mainly was in Berlin, where Martin wrote the songs for Some Great Reward, some of them obviously about his relationship to Christina. So Fletch was joking about the songs on the new album: "One's not just a love song. It's a real moon-in-June, lovey-dovey ... Martin's in love again, see?"
Martin: "The point is to see something that's important and to write about it honestly, even if it's only important to yourself. A love song can be completely throwaway or it can ring true, y'know. Some people tend to think that love songs shouldn't be treated seriously, that it's only if you're writing about social problems that a song becomes serious."[1]
It's almost the opposite of what he said the year before, talking about Construction Time Again, but of course, times change ...

David and girlfriend Jo moved to a house of their own in Basildon, and David filled his leisure time with nice hobbies like hinges: "Stupid hobby, really. You wait five hours to catch a fish, then you catch it, then you throw it back. I really don't know why I bother."[2]
Alan: "Berlin was an absolutely important phase in which some of us got a little more familiar with the world. It came to some changes there. I think at least with Dave. There wasn't any dramatic radical change at him but I noticed that he lost weight, that he got wirier and more aggressive in his appearance. Perhaps he felt a certain pressure in his private life with Jo."[3] The complete opposite to this was Martin: "We certainly saw Martin come out of his shell during this time. It seemed as though he had some catching up to do, having been a quiet and reserved teenager by all accounts. Frequenting clubs and bars became more routine and we all saw a very different side to Martin when he was let loose, so to speak - heavy drinking followed by apparel-removal being top of his list of favourite activities."[4]

Fletch: "We'd grown up in Essex, hardly one of us had ever been out of Essex or London for a long time, so going to all these new places was so interesting for us, especially Berlin in those days. Living and recording in Berlin did have a big impression because there were so many weird and interesting people there."[5]
It couldn't have been that impressive to Fletch because he moved to his girlfriend Grainne and her mother in Basildon. He often emphasized he never wanted to leave Basildon.
Also Alan seemed rather well-behaved, lived with girlfriend Jeri and her child in Kilburn, London. The thing with the child was always a bit non-transparent. It was mentioned very seldom. Once it was said his name was Jason and that he was Jeri's child but the Bravo (a German teenage magazine) was the source to this. Another time Alan was quoted with "Jeri is not only the mother of my child, but also a great hairdresser".[6] What of course one can understand as that he regarded the child as his without being the physical father. But if I understand this right Alan was at least 10 years younger than Jeri - or even more - and that the child was 12 years old in 1984.
When I had opportunity to ask Alan about it, he explained: "It is correct that she was a good deal older than me, and that I lived with her and her son, who wasn't mine. We had no children together."[7]

Also in the beginning of the year the single People Are People / In Your Memory was recorded and released on March 12. It was the first track to benefit from a period of pre-programming to save studio time, so it was done in a dodgy rehearsal room in Dollis Hill, North London.
Alan: "We would have finished it sooner except that some of the work had to be redone after the infamous incident when a particular member of the band turned up, only to trip over the main power cable and pull the plug."[8]
Although People Are People was quite obvious from the lyrics it had to be explained, too.
Martin: "Although it's a song about racism that's just one example of people not getting on. It's about all sorts of differences between people."
Alan: "You could interpret it as being anti-war as well."
What promptly fed the rumour of the "political band" and it was suggested they had become more serious now.
Martin: "I don't think so. When people say you're a serious band they think you don't have a good time anymore - you walk around all the time with your cheeks sucked in, things like that. But we don't. We're still exactly the same. It's just the things we're writing about and the way we want to come across in interviews that has changed."[9]
Didn't help really. Instead the "red worker polit image" of Construction Time Again still adhered to them. At a performance on Belgian television it was brought up all again. They wanted the band to play with gigantic red flags in the background which are blown out by a wind machine. And as an extra, hammers and sickles should be swung by some men. The band refused to do that.

David: "People don't seem to see Martin's wit. A lot of journalists seem to see something ... see Martin's got a very weird sense of humour, and that of humour comes across in his lyrics. For instance, the lyric in People Are People: people get along so awfully. The word awfully is a funny word. You don't really say that in conversation: I get on with you so awfully ... There wasn't really anybody who picked up on that."[10]
They always tried to explain that there is a lot of humour in their music, many phrases people from Basildon use or as people speak in general like: The world we live in and life in general. They wanted those phrases to be seen as not very serious but up to today there are a lot of people who see DM as "moody and dark".
A couple of years later Alan was asked by a fan: "People ARE People. What excellent lyrics. I'm sure this is a song you are very proud of. What does it mean?"
Alan: "It means exactly this: people are people, no bears or wallabies. I think this says a lot."[11]

They weren't happy with the video to People Are People - one of the most shown videos of them, however - which was filmed on the HMS Belfast in London.
Martin: "When we first started we just did anything that came along, basically. If someone came along with a video script, the first one we saw, we'd jump at it. We therefore regret most videos of the early years."[12]
As well as they weren't really happy with the song itself (some years later).
Fletch: "Basically it's our least favourite song. It's Martin's least favourite song, I don't know if there was a story behind it" (I think with People Are People Martin is regarding to the story he told about Basildon - see the chapter "Martin Lee Gore" - when he and a friend were attacked by some people without any reasons, kicking and shouting at them) "it's just that he brought it to us one day, we liked it and went in the studio, recording it, and it was a big hit."[13]
It really was a big success, especially in Germany where it was a Number-One-hit. German TV even used the song for reportages about the Olympic Summer Games in 1984. In UK it reached number 4. Even in the US it was a success, when it reached number 13 of the charts. The song has since become an anthem for the gay community and is regularly played at gay establishments and gay pride festivals. Some people even think that DM changed the American society with this song.
Martin: "It was around that time that things started changing for us in America. On the tour for that album, we were totally shocked by the way fans were turning up in droves at the concerts. Suddenly, we were playing to 10,000 people. Although the concerts were selling really well, though, we still found it a struggle to actually sell records."[14]
The success of that single surprised the band at that time, and also years later they still wondered about it.
Alan: "Not bad for a song whose rhyming hook - People are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully - is a candidate for 'worst lyric ever written'."[15]

In March DM played five gigs in Italy and Spain as some kind of last leg of the Construction-Time-Again-Tour.
In May they started to record Some Great Reward in the Hansa-Studios in Berlin, a time that everyone, who was involved, described as "happy and creative".
Alan: "There was a dynamic atmosphere in the studio and we had a lot of fun in Germany because of having such a great success and being surrounded by so many fans."[16]
David: "I'm very pleased with the vocal sound on this one - it's a lot to do with having confidence and a lot to do with being comfortable with the engineer. Also, I took a couple of lessons with Tona De Brett, scales and things, and I didn't see much application to singing pop songs but I wanted to do more for the breathing control. Sometimes when I'm running across the stage and singing I get very out of breath. On this album we took more care on the vocals."[17]
Two years later he said: "A few years back I thought I ought to have proper singing lessons and went to Tona De Brett. All she did was try to make me sing like Barbra Streisand, which was not much use to me. I try to get a feeling when I sing. I might not get every note right, but I don't think that's important."[18]

Alan: "I suppose we have matured a bit, the songs are a bit more serious now.[19]"
They were very into sample stuff now, created a lot of own sounds.
Martin: "For Master And Servant we've used quite a lot of toy instruments. Me and Andy went to Hamleys and bought nearly everything in the musical department - xylophones, toy pianos, toy saxophones.[20] One we used a lot was a Marina. It sounded pretty terrible as a toy but when we took it down a couple of octaves it sounded really good."
Alan: "People tend to think that if you're using toy instruments then they have to sound whacky but we put some to very good use because as soon as you sample them they take on a whole new quality and when you transpose them it puts them in a completely new context."[21]
Some of the sounds on Master And Servant - such as the whip effect - are based on Daniel Miller standing in the studio hissing and spitting ("we tried to sample a real whip but it was hopeless").[22]

They had a break during recording to have a gig with Elton John on June 2 in Ludwigshafen. Not because of that but they nevertheless got into trouble with the deadline.
Alan: "We returned from Music Works [in London where we recorded] to Hansa to mix the album but ended up getting horribly behind schedule. As a result, myself, Dan and Gareth completed the album alone because the other 3 band members had all booked their summer holidays and didn't want to cancel them. I foresaw the fact that we were going to go over deadline and held off arranging one myself because I didn't want to miss out on the whole mixing process."
(Reading lines like these you start to get an idea why things became so difficult later. The rest of the band felt fine to go on holidays leaving Alan behind in the studio, knowing he and the other two would make a good job. On the other hand - Alan didn't mind at that time ...)
Released at the same time as Frankie Goes To Hollywood's massive hit, Relax, the aim was to emulate the same "fat, round bass sound" for Master And Servant.
Alan: "We went completely up our a*** and ended up with exactly the opposite, topping it all off at the end of a 7 day mix by leaving out a small detail - the snare drum. The cost of this crucial omission was realised when Gareth and Dan hot-footed it down to a local Berlin club one night, armed with a test pressing and fully expecting to blow the local's minds. By the law of sod, the track came on straight after the pounding bass of Relax. Not surprisingly, it cleared the dance floor, leaving both of them standing, red-faced in their raincoats, clutching their briefcases."[23]

On August 20 the single Master And Servant / (Set Me Free) Remotivate Me was released, followed by the album Some Great Reward on September 24. (By the way - Did you know that Brian Griffin used the building of the Round Oak steelworks in Brierley Hill as the backdrop for the cover of Some Great Reward? The factory was pulled down shortly after.)
The promo for Master And Servant was shot in Berlin.
Alan: "Clive [Richardson] hired a French choreographer who put together the hilarious 'Eetsa lot, eetsa lot' dance routine. One of the most embarrassing video moment ever - and believe me, there were many."
Further on he describes on his website "the cancellation of a day filming after 'fisticuffs' ensued between two band members. Brought about when one party berated the other for excessive drinking, the Depeche Mode camp was decidedly uncomfortable for an entire week thereafter until the status quo was eventually restored, a peace agreement reached and the happy couple reconciled over Hansa Studio's 'Space Invader' machine."
I'm not quite sure but it's possible that he's referring to the same incident with this anecdote: "There was one particular video shoot where a fight between two band members did occur. Not that I'm mentioning any names of course except to say that when Dave tried to attract my attention to witness this amusing spectacle, I was preoccupied with something else and missed it."[24]

Martin: "With the video to Master And Servant we steered clear of the sexual side a bit. It's very easy to make a video like that ... Relax II. There's a bit of rolling around with chains and hanging up with chains ... but nothing too blatant."
David: "Obviously you have to think about it getting banned. It might mean hundreds or thousands of people not actually seeing the thing because of one thing in the video."
Alan: "We did think about the song as well. But we went ahead and released it."[25]
David: "You have to take risks ... you can't be safe all the time. We even had problems with Master And Servant when the BBC called for a copy of the lyrics to check them out, but only one guy thought they were obscene, and he was away on holiday when the final decision was taken! The girl who took the decision agreed with us that it's about love and life, which of course it is."[26]
Martin: "It's about domination and exploitation ... and using a sexual angle to get that point across. What the song's saying is that these two people are indulging in this and getting fulfilment from it because it reminds them of their lives outside the bedroom."[27]
David: "Yeah, but on the records it's sexual, isn't it?"
Alan: "No it's not, it's not just about sex. Martin?"
David: "On the record it is, I think that's pretty obvious from the lyric."
Martin: "Alright then."[28]

Somebody Martin sang nakedly, according to his own statement and confirmed by Alan. A story that was brought up over and over again. At least at Alan's appearance in the Hansa Studios with one of his Selected events (with Recoil) in 2010.
But the story was told differently every time. One time it is said Martin and Alan hadn't been in the same room but Alan at the piano in the Meistersaal and Martin a room next door or in the cellar. Another time it is said they had been in the same room and Alan had the piano turned around because Martin got undressed.
Martin: "Somebody is pretty much a straightforward 'I love you' song if you like, certainly not an anti-love song."[29] But "a pleasant song to me is unfinished, it isn't telling the full story. Which is why I introduced the twist at the end of Somebody because the song was just too nice. You say I'm cynical about love in my songs and perhaps I am but I think that's an interesting angle. Otherwise you just become mundane like most chart music. Relationships do have their darker side and I like to write about it."[30]

Something To Do he wrote as an expression of the boredom he felt for Basildon: "You can become what we call a total spam, which is like a real beer boy, out every night drinking, Cockney accent develops, all that. Or basically you start wearing women's clothing - it's all you can turn to."[31]
And he began to wear women clothes! A topic the media would deal with within the next two, three years. Very intensively. It started when he bought a leather skirt and wore it over leather trousers. This caused storms of enthusiasm in the media that rushed at the skirt in the true sense of the word.
It increased when Martin intensified his outfit, wore the skirt without trousers, then dresses, silk stockings, (by the way - every woman would turn pale with envy because of his legs :D) and pearl necklaces.
The rest of the band took this - depending on temperament - in good humour or with: "You've got to take that off!"[32] The latter Martin took apparently literally as he made a name as a "club stripper" to himself.
Most journalists and biographers tended to take the thing with the skirt much too seriously. I think it was exactly what Martin said about it: fun. He wasn't "strange" or "perverted" or "poofy". It was simply the fun of "wearing strange dresses and being a bit different" and part of Martin's special humour that - as some people in the fan survey of this website said - some people simply don't get. "I'd put your pretty dress on" (Something To Do) was a joke - and dressing up like this was a joke, too.

Talking about jokes: Sometimes they delivered the proof of not being serious and grown up at all.
Martin: "Fletch, apart from being in a quite successful band, has also got the smallest nipples in the world."
David: "They're like two freckles."
Fletch: "They've just never grown. But they're not that bad."
Martin: "They are, Fletch."
David: "You're a weird guy, Fletch."
Fletch: "I just haven't got very big what-do-you-call-its. The round bit... the dark bit around it."
David: "That IS your nipple, Andy."
Fletch: "No, it isn't."
David: "I'll talk to you later Fletch. Man talk. I'll give you a few books on the subject."[33]

Alan describes here how he had styled his hair:
"Hot HAIR (about 1983/84)
You will need:

• 1 STUPID PRATT (preferably aged - about 22 should do it)
• 1 LARGE MIRROR (doctored to look as flattering as possible)
• 1 HEAD OF STRAGGLY, UNKEMPT HAIR (do NOT wash thoroughly)
• FULL HOLD HAIR GEL (2 tubes)
• 1 COMB
• HOVIS BREAD (1 loaf)
• ELNETTE TURBO-NUTTER-BASTARD STRENGTH HAIRSPRAY (3 cans)
• 1 BLINKERED ATTITUDE
• 1 POOFY EIGHTIES POP BAND
• GAGGLE OF TEENAGE GIRLS
• 1 PACKET CONDOMS

Take stupid pratt and stand for half an hour in front of the large mirror. Start by coating straggly hair thoroughly with both tubes of full hold hair gel, being careful to ensure sideburns are not missed. Using comb, scoop upwards to resemble loaf of bread and immediately cover LIBERALLY with hair spray (remembering to save some for the garnish). DO NOT MOVE UNTIL SET.
Next, ignore the fact that everyone's saying "Look at that stupid pratt who looks like he's got a loaf of bread on his head" and place firmly in an equally badly dressed and follically-disastrous 80's pop band. Finally, add one more spray of Elnette and serve immediately to gaggle of teenage girls who'll tell him he looks great ..."[34]

No fun for the band in those days but in review the stories teenage-magazines wrote are very funny.
The British journalist Don Watson and DM entered a hotel and spotted a reporter team of a German teen-magazine with cameras.
Fletch: "It's no good refusing to talk to them. They'll just go ahead and make it up anyway. The last time we refused an interview with them, they made up a story about Dave having to be carried off-stage at the end of every performance, taken to a separate dressing room and kept supplied with constant fluids. The time before that they said we hated everyone under 20, which made us very popular with their readership."
As they made their way through the swing doors, David made a theatrical fall on the hotel courtyard. "Help! I need a cup of coffee," he wailed as the rest of the band crowded around him.
"Oh God!" shamed Alan, "this happens all the time."[35]

The first story to which Fletch alluded was actually rather transparently. Dramatically was reported how David was carried into the wardrobe. Unfortunately it was said that helpers took care that nobody could enter the room, also no band members. However, two lines further it was reported that David would still lie on the bench. If nobody was allowed to enter the room, how the reporters wanted to know this then?
(A Belgian teenage-magazine jumped on this wagon, too, and quoted David with: "I never did any sports when I was young. When Depeche Mode started to become a little more popular, I collapsed immediately after the first few gigs. Now I can handle it, lucky for me. Whenever I have a day off, you can find me in the gymnasium. There I train myself to exhaustion. Shadowbox-ing, weightlifting ..."[36] I can't tell you if he really said this.)
The reaction to the second story - they would hate everyone under 20 - actually turned out dramatically. Quite a number of fans were indignant by the "arrogance" of the band and wrote angry letters to the magazine.
There were a lot of faults in the stories that were published in these teen-magazines, all possible things were mixed up continually or wild assertions were put forward. Therefore Martin and Vince had been the schoolmates [it was Fletch and Martin] and the only founder of DM. A whole album [Construction Time Again] was demoted to a song and Alan lost his songwriter credits to Martin since Two Minute Warning was ascribed to him, "he thinks the end of the world has come".
Stripped was so misinterpreted that German teenagers thought for a long time DM wanted all girls they met to undress nakedly in front of them. (What certainly some did ...). Shake The Disease was connected with AIDS. And David would have nicked cars because of his family would have had nothing to eat. And he would have removed several tattoos with extremely painful etch chemicals. [He had had removed only one - with laser].[37]

On September 27 the next tour started. This time it was splitted up into four legs. The first leg included 19 gigs in Great Britain and ended on November 4.
David: "The fewer gigs you do on a tour the more you enjoy yourself. I love the audience contact, it gives me a big kick that you can't get in the studio or on TV - I always feel a great deal of power when I can make 6,000 people do what I want. We're about to embark on a huge tour, though - more dates than we wanted to do really, ending towards Christmas and taking in Germany, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland. There are a few days off, but the gigs are mostly back to back - when we get a day off it's always a Sunday in Hanley. Have you ever been in Hanley on a Sunday? You look at a couple of antique shops, you wander about thinking 'what the hell can I do?', you go back to the hotel and watch a couple of videos. It's awful. After this lot most of us will be wanting a holiday. The last German tour finished right before Christmas and by that time it had got very difficult to do something different every night. My mind used to drift sometimes and I'd forget the words. I like moving about the stage now - at one time I used to keep still and just clutch the mike stand - but now I go to different parts of the audience and play up to them."[38]
Alan: "It's pretty much the same every night, so it can get a bit boring. The worst thing is finding something to fill in three hours in a hotel bedroom in the afternoon. I take photographs to relieve the boredom. I can't write songs or anything, neither can Martin. There's something about touring that stops you doing that."[39]
This boredom would lead only a little later to the massive partying during the tours.

In between, on October 29, the single Blasphemous Rumours / Somebody was released.
According to rumours Blasphemous Rumours based on a true story. If true or not, the BBC refused to play it and also other people reacted negatively to this song.
"If we can say God so loved the world that He sent His only son, if He did that He cannot have a sick sense of humour,"[40] a priest from Basildon said in a local newspaper as a comment on Blasphemous Rumours.
David: "Blasphemous Rumours is really not an anti-religious song. Of course it's a personal statement on Martin's part but at the same time it's a statement of how everybody must feel at one time or another. It's just that - some of the things we noticed, like there'd always be a prayer list for certain people and the one at the top always died. Things like that."
Martin: "People get too much preaching - even around the town in Basildon, you know? People cling to religion through fear of death. It's not a bad thing to be religious, in fact I think I'd be happier if I did believe."
Fletch: "I turned away from religion because I found I was leading a really boring life. I wanted to live life to the full but I was trapped, and I thought 'if I die tomorrow that'll be it' ... it's a shame that Christianity is perverted and hyped so much, because it does have something to offer."[41]

The second leg of the tour went from November 15 until December 18 and included 16 concerts in Europe.
But, of course, Blasphemous Rumours also was performed on some TV shows. While the metal-like sound had been produced with a hammer on a concrete floor, the band decided to play a bicycle wheel and a breeze block combination for TV performances.
Alan: "But the only real recollections [about the TV performance at Tommy's Popshow] are that we always took the opportunity to get very drunk backstage - particularly the year when Frankie Goes To Hollywood were also on the show."[42]
(There even had been a drinking competition that was won by DM - probably something that must be seen as consolation for the boredom at those TV performances.)

---

References:
[1] The Basildon Bond, Melody Maker, 10th March 1984. Words: Micky Senate
[2] Are These Men Really Miserable? Smash Hits, 15th-28th March 1984. Words: Johnny Black / Peter Martin
[3] www.recoil.co.uk
[4] Just Can't Get Enough, Uncut, May 2001. Words: Stephen Dalton
[5] The Story Of Depeche Mode, BBC Radio London Live94.9, May 7th 2001, Producer: Tony Wood
[6] Depeche Mode prive (part one: Alan Wilder), unkown author, media and date
[7] Depechemodebiographie.de
[8] www.recoil.co.uk
[9] Clunk Clunk Every Trip, Record Mirror, 10th March 1984. Words: Jim Reid
[10] Aces High, Zig Zag, August 1985. Words: William Shaw
[11] www.recoil.co.uk
[12] Clunk Clunk Every Trip, Record Mirror, 10th March 1984. Words: Jim Reid
[13] Depeche Mode: The Interview, Talking Music SPEEK013, 1988
[14] Violator, Alligator, NME, 7th July 1990. Words: Jeff Giles
[15] www.recoil.co.uk
[16] www.recoil.co.uk
[17] Blasphemy Rewarded, Melody Maker, 22nd September 1984. Words: Mark Jenkins
[18] Basildon Bond, Blitz, April 1986. Words: Bruce Dessau
[19] Are These Men Really Miserable? Smash Hits, 15th-28th March 1984. Words: Johnny Black / Peter Martin
[20] Construction Time Again, Smash Hits, 16th August 1984. Words: Tim de Lisle
[21] Sampling Mode, International Musician And Recording World, November 1984. Words: Adrian Deevoy
[22] Blasphemy Rewarded, Melody Maker, 22nd September 1984. Words: Mark Jenkins
[23] www.recoil.co.uk
[24] www.recoil.co.uk
[25] Master of the Game, Record Mirror, 29th September 1984. Words: Eleanor Levy
[26] Blasphemy Rewarded, Melody Maker, 22nd September 1984. Words: Mark Jenkins
[27] Master of the Game, Record Mirror, 29th September 1984. Words: Eleanor Levy
[28] Everything Counts (in Large Amounts), Number One, 19th October 1985. Words: Paul Bursche
[29] Blasphemy Rewarded, Melody Maker, 22nd September 1984. Words: Mark Jenkins
[30] Sin Machine, NME, 17th February 1990. Words: Stuart Maconie
[31] Coming up Smiling, The Face, February 1985. Words: Sheryl Garratt
[32] Violator, Alligator, NME, 7th July 1990. Words: Jeff Giles
[33] Master of the Game, Record Mirror, 29th September 1984. Words: Eleanor Levy
[34] www.recoil.co.uk
[35] Deconstruction Time Again, NME, 22nd December 1984. Words: Don Watson
[36] Depeche Mode begs for a vacation, Joepie, 1984, author unknown
[37] Several Bravo-articles
[38] Blasphemy Rewarded, Melody Maker, 22nd September 1984. Words: Mark Jenkins
[39] Strange but True, Smash Hits, 22nd November - 5th December 1984. Words: Neil Tennant
[40] Source can't be found anymore
[41] Blasphemy Rewarded, Melody Maker, 22nd September 1984. Words: Mark Jenkins
[42] www.recoil.co.uk

Biography: 1985

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